What a remarkable encounter. You know exactly what I’m talking about.
The Zelensky summit at the White House, if it could be called that, made for quite the spectacle. It was clear that there would be disagreements, but for them to be aired in such a way, publicly, in front of the world’s press—well, has there ever been anything like it?
A televised shouting match between the President of the United States and the leader of an allied nation. An allied nation that’s relying, desperately, on the goodwill and support of the United States for its very survival.
Imagine Roosevelt and Churchill duking it out on a Pathé newsreel.
No, I don’t think so.
A shouting match—in truth, it was no such thing. It wasn’t just about volume or aggression. The points were well made, and their truth rang out, at least on the American side. Zelensky is in no position to dictate terms to the United States, not any more, if indeed he ever was. The situation has changed. Ukraine is bogged down, struggling—valiantly, yes, but still struggling—and the United States no longer wants or needs to prolong the war to achieve its geostrategic aims.
Of course, the mainstream media wants to portray this incident as yet another outrage perpetrated by America’s most outrageous president, a man whose manners aren’t fit for the dinner table, let alone the four-legged piece of furniture where negotiations between states take place. Or it was JD Vance’s fault, that hillbilly upstart—the chap the Democrats tried to tell you was “weird” when their candidate for VP was pogoing around on stage to John Mellencamp and pretending he’d never cooked with spices before. The guy who gave his teenage son a bowl cut and made him go “full retard” for sympathy. That guy. Tim Something-or-Other.
So it’s worth watching the full encounter, running to around 45 minutes, if only to see that, no, it wasn’t President Trump or Vice President Vance who took the lead in dragging the whole thing down into the black Ukrainian mud. It was President Zelensky.
It’s not like this was the first time either. Zelensky has form. He’s been accused before of being thoroughly ungrateful for Western aid and angering his allies, including President Biden. His charmless behavior almost scuppered the 2023 NATO summit. That same year, Biden ended up shouting down the phone at him when news of the latest billion-dollar round of US aid was greeted with the sullen ingratitude of a spotty teenager who just wants more, more, more.
People say a good proportion of the aid that’s sent to Ukraine goes up Zelensky’s nose in powdered form and, frankly, judging from his demeanor as he sat in the Oval Office—listless, shifty, eyes darting here and there, hands never still—I could believe a large shipment was delivered to one of the Presidential nostrils not long before he entered the White House. (Incidentally: Nobody has ever asked whether the cocaine found in the White House was actually Zelensky’s, not Hunter Biden’s, from one of his multiple diplomatic visits to the capital between 2022 and 2024. Just a thought.)
Anyway, it took about 40 minutes for the conversation to turn south, and it was Zelensky who did the turning. He was clearly growing agitated after President Trump’s repeated insistence that he wants a peaceful resolution to the war, and then Vice President Vance stepped in to explain the difference in attitude between the Biden and Trump administrations.
Cue fireworks.
“What kind of diplomacy, JD, are you asking about? What do you mean?”
In the face of such an obvious provocation—as clear an act of lèse-majesté as you could hope to find—you’ll notice how the Vice President continues to refer to Zelensky as “Mr President,” not “Volodymyr” or “Vlod” or “V” or “you stupid little jumped-up TV comedian dancer f*ggot.”
Even so, Vance hit Zelensky hard, accusing him of being “disrespectful” for “[coming] to the Oval Office and [trying] to litigate this in front of the America media.”
Zelensky chose to make things much, much worse for himself by suggesting the US would soon have problems on its own doorstep as a result of the war. That barely veiled threat brought Trump back into the action, and I think it’s safe to say the whole thing was now irretrievable.
“Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel,” Trump repeated.
“You’re in no position to dictate what we’re going to feel. We’re going to feel very good and very strong… You’ve allowed yourself to be in a very bad position. You don’t have the cards right now. With us you start having the cards.”
Zelensky tried to cavil about the gambling metaphor, but it was too late. Trump and Vance hammered him from both sides, by turns accusing him of trying to provoke World War III and of showing no appreciation for American military support.
“Just say thank you,” Vance urged.
Zelensky even got the “knife hand” from the Vice President, which my friend Jack Posobiec assures me is bad news. When a marine gives you the knife hand, you’ve really messed up.
As if to further underline the depth of the unfolding catastrophe, the camera cut to Ukraine’s ambassador to the US, Oksana Markarova, who sat with her head in her hands. Her face said it all.
Disaster.
Zelensky was asked to leave the White House. There was no agreement, nothing was signed. Just go.
The obvious question now: What’s next for the little man from Kiev?
Zelensky is already feeling the financial sting of his ill-advised behavior. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has cut all USAID funding for rebuilding Ukraine’s devastated energy-transmission system, and official White House sources are saying further military aid—billions of dollars’ worth of vital radars, ammunition and missiles—is now going to be withheld. Elon Musk has suggested a full DOGE audit of every penny Ukraine has received since 2022.
In an interview with Fox after he left the White House on Friday, Zelensky seemed puzzled by what had just happened, a bit like an addict who wakes up the morning after a massive bender and wonders why the mirrors are all broken and there’s a hole in the bedroom door and his hands are bloody and bruised and his foot hurts. He’s since said he believes a deal with the US is still possible. US pressure may be enough to bring him back to the table with a better attitude.
But if it isn’t, it’s hard to see where Zelensky goes from here.
The incident has horrified Ukraine’s European allies. And while there’s bold talk of “going it alone” and supporting Ukraine without the US, that simply won’t happen. As much as Europe might like to think it has an independent capability to support a proxy war or even a direct war against Russia, it doesn’t. Such talk is pure bluster.
Last week, Zelensky said he would be willing to step aside to secure peace. Don’t be surprised if he’s held to his word very soon.